Jose Hernandez Diaz

The Roosters

As I enter the patio to smoke a cigarette, I notice two roosters.
I don’t have roosters. This isn’t a neighborhood where roosters frequent.
This is Minneapolis, Minnesota. The pair of roosters lay in the snow.

They roll around. I inhale. Exhale. The roosters get up. They approach me.
They turn into llamas. I pet the llamas. I ask them if they are from Peru?
They seem offended. I inhale. As I exhale, the llamas turn into goats.

I have a pair of goats in my patio. I don’t know what to do, so I call the police.
“I have a pair of goats in my patio, but they’re liable to change.”
“You say you have a pair of goats in your patio, but they’re liable to change?”

“That’s correct,” I say, as I exhale the smoke. “We’ll send over animal control,”
he says. By the time I hang up, the goats turn into Roger Clemens
and Pedro Martinez. We smoke my last cigarettes, the three of us.

When the door rings, the three of us, General Ulysses S. Grant, Joan Miró,
and I, walk to the door. “Sir, you’ll have to come with me,”
a man in a large coat says. We follow his lead.

The Broken Boat

The broken boat was broken from too much weight.
The broken boat once carried two elephants on loan
from the Tokyo Zoo, all the way to Los Angeles.

The broken boat once carried 113,346 sombreros.
A businessman from Guadalajara made a fortune
with the broken boat. The broken boat once carried

a 300 lb. man, and a 300 lb. woman, all the way
from Eastern Spain to Northern New Hampshire,
after a honeymoon spent running with bulls.

Or jogging. Walking, really. The broken boat is light blue
with golden polka dots. No one bid on the broken boat
at a Manhattan auction. No one but you.

The Red House

The red house has five windows. The red house does not have any new clocks. The red house has three Rottweilers, all of them named Samuel. The red house has quiet afternoons, despite all the furniture. The red house has bougainvillea running along a brick wall. The red house has a blue fire pit. The red house has seven candles instead of lamps. The red house was never yours. The red house has a lime interior. The red house has two roosters and an ant problem. The red house never forgives. The red house is not painted red. The red house has three orange trees in the backyard. The red house is not for sale. The red house doesn’t write during holidays. The red house has doors as mirrors. The red house, pale and drunk, at night.

José Hernández Díaz is an MFA student at Antioch University-Los Angeles. He earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley. His work has appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Progressive, Lumina, Witness, Huizache, Pilgrimage, Juked, Parcel, Acentos Review, Whiskey Island, and others. He has served as an editor for Lunch Ticket and Floricanto Press.